man he is!" Wieland, Merck, Bürger, Madame de Staël, Karl August, and
other great people sought her acquaintance. The Duchess Amalia
corresponded with her as with an intimate friend; and her letters were
welcomed eagerly at the Weimar Court. She was married at seventeen to a
man for whom she had no love, and was only eighteen when the poet was
born. This, instead of making her prematurely old, seems to have
perpetuated her girlhood. "I and my Wolfgang," she said, "have always
held fast to each other, because we were both young together." To him
she transmitted her love of story-telling, her animal spirits, her love
of everything which bore the stamp of distinctive individuality, and her
love of seeing happy faces around her. "Order and quiet," she says in
one of her charming letters to Freiherr von Stein, "are my principal
characteristics. Hence I despatch at once whatever I have to do, the
most disagreeable always first, and I gulp down the devil without
looking at him. When all has returned to its proper state, then I defy
any one to surpass me in good humour." Her heartiness and tolerance are
the causes, she thinks, why every one likes her. "I am fond of people,
and _that_ every one feels directly--young and old. I pass without
pretension through the world, and that gratifies men. I never
_bemoralise_ any one--_always seek out the good that is in them, and
leave what is bad to Him who made mankind, and knows how to round off
the angles_. In this way I make myself happy and comfortable." Who does
not recognise the son in those accents? The kindliest of men inherited
his loving, happy nature from the heartiest of women.


WHERE--AND OH! WHERE?
[Sidenote: _Henry S. Leigh_]

Where are the times when--miles away